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Comment by clarkevans | Hacker News Reader

Why is the burden of proof on the public to show a pesticide is unsafe, rather than on the manufacturer to ensure (and publicly document, explain) that they have reasonable expectation of safety? Why is it hard/impossible for independent investigators to get samples? We're talking about our water (run-off) and food supplies here.

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Because it wouldn't matter and it would set a horrible precedent. Who's going to define and enforce what a "reasonable expectation of safety" is? The government, who has a revolving door with the same industry it's expected to regulate?

I prefer the system we have in place now, which is for the press (alternative, professional or otherwise) to alert people to a problem and they can decide how much risk they're willing to take.

Although, I do admit that approach won't work with Monsanto. They don't technically have a monopoly, but they're big enough that a reasonable alternative doesn't exist. But, they're big enough that attempts at regulation or law enforcement won't work either. One of the conundrums of our day, I suppose.

It's good to see Europe taking the opposite approach of America with regards to Glyphosate. Forget the studies and just let time show us who is right and who is wrong.

All I do know is that humanity made it this far (15000+ years of agriculture) without such chemicals and we'll probably make it much further without them.

If you like Glyphosate, fair enough, enjoy! The rest of us might sit on the sidelines and watch this experiment unfold.

It's important to keep in mind that there are a variety of things that are different now from the preceding 15ky of agriculture -- the most important statistic being the one demonstrated by this graph: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3a/Human_populat....

Crop failures used to kill millions of people, and now that doesn't happen. Industrial agriculture is part of that story.

I think this is a false dichotomy where, if we don't use Monsanto, we will be forced back to the stone age. If herbicides are dangerous we should start putting resources towards further developing alternatives (like the weed-punching bot Bosch is working on)

I don't think it was presented as a dichotomy. Just that you can't cherry pick the parts of the past that you like to support your theory.

> humanity made it this far (15000+ years of agriculture) with

That's an argument to "the way it's always been done", which is not very effective.

http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/Something-s-just-not-right...

It's clearly because moneyed interests run a multi-pronged campaign to avoid that.

How can you prove a negative? Can you prove that you don't beat your wife?

The MSDS process does provide a rather comprehensive treatment of chemicals. It would be ridiculous to prove that every single chemical doesn't cause a rare pancreatic cancer. How do you test that? Human trials? It isn't the money'd interests, it just practical reality. These chemicals ARE tested to some extent.. It would be ridiculous for a company to have to prove their product doesn't cause any of 10,000 types of cancer, diseases or any other ailment.

Then you have pseudo-science forces working against "industry" regardless of facts. DDT is a great example of what happens when we let people like Rachel Carson have the unrestricted ability to effectively libel a product based on discredited science -- leading to malaria almost being eliminated to malaria killing millions of people each year.

Maybe activists ought to have their claims subject to regulation.. They are guilty of scientific fraud. Vaccines, DDT, GMOs, fracking.. They are opposed to those things not based on actual, credible and repeatable science but because pop culture "experts" want to sell books or movie tickets and organizations have a financial interest in promoting their "non-profits."

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